Basil Twist and Joey Arias on the red carpet at the premiere of "Arias With A Twist: The Docufantasty"

On April 23, 2010 puppeteer Basil Twist and drag legend Joey Arias attended the premiere of their film “Arias With A Twist: The Docufantasy,” as part of New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. The film showcases the wonderful worlds of Basil Twist and Joey Arias and in the center of it all is footage from their hugely successful show Arias With A Twist, which had sold-out runs in Los Angeles, New York, Berlin and Paris in 2008-2009. I saw the show 5 times when it was in New York and was truly one of the most innovative and original shows I’ve ever seen. Coming from a person who goes out 3 to 5 times a week, that’s saying a lot! In Arias with a Twist, Joey Arias sings renditions of songs by Led Zeppelin (Kashmir), The Beatles (Within You Without You and Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds) and Billie Holiday (You’ve Changed) and flawlessly, I might add, mingled with interactions with some of the most intricate puppetry that has ever graced the stage. The Docufantasy also has footage of Basil Twist when he lived in France becoming one of the greatest puppet-masters in the world plus some of the other shows he has worked on (and they were all amazing!), clips of Joey Arias performing with Klaus Nomi and David Bowie (TVC15 for the Bowie die-hards reading this) and testimonials by legendary performers such as Raven O, Sherry Vine, Elvira, Ann Magnuson, artist Kenny Scharf and designer Thierry Mugler and many of them were in the audience tonight. My favorite line in the movie was when Joey Arias was talking about his days in Las Vegas working on the Cirque DuSoleil show Zumanity. Arias won the prestigious award for “Diva of the Strip,” to which Joey replied, “That award should have gone to Celine Dion. She’s a diva. I am a goddess.” Truer words have never been spoken. This film has not been picked up by a distributor yet, so to all the movie moguls reading this blog – I’ve just presented you with a golden opportunity. The world deserves to see this wonderful film!